Video of 9mm Shell set off with Torch

Wow, I am very surprised. I have been reloading off and on for about 20 years, and I was always told that smokeless powder is pressure based, and that without a chamber for the cartridge, an ignited round would just pop the bullet off the case and then fizz away the rest of the powder (kind of like what happens when you put a flame to smokeless powder on a flat surface, like a concrete surface).

I was told that it was a myth that if a house, with lots of ammo, caught on fire, that the ammo would discharge and be dangerous. I know guys with tens of thousand of rounds of ammo in their homes.

It looks as if the myth is not a myth.
 
Pretty cool. Basically what I expected.

Also, no one sleeps right next to a box of ammo that would then catch on fire. (if that happened, you'd have to be more worried about the fire)
As long as you have some distance and/or a light barrier between you and the burning ammo, you're fairly safe.

If your house is on fire, discharging ammo is likely the least of your worries. If you're that close to a pile of burning ammo, in your house, then I seriously question what you're doing there.

To me, the myth is a myth. No, burning ammo is obviously not completely harmless but when the ammo discharges, it's very likely not going to be flying through walls like a movie style shootout, with bullets ricocheting all over the place. I just can't think of a likely scenario where someone would get seriously injured from burning ammo in a fire. if they store their ammo in a decent place, and they're not within a foot of a pile of burning ammo.

I also believe Myth Busters did a test like this with using a .22 in place of a fuse. The myth was something along the lines of, a headlight fuse blew in a guy's pickup truck so he replaced the blown fuse with a live .22LR bullet, after about 20 miles the bullet heated up enough to go off, and hit the driver right in a 'sensitive area' IIRC their conclusion was that there is potential for lethality, but in most cases wounding was not extremely significant. In the words of Jaime "I dont think they're lethal, but I think if you were sitting there, you'd get some pretty nasty bruises" They found holes in their test dummy's clothing, but no evidence of actual damage to the dummy.
A .22 also has less mass (in it's bullet and case) as well as less powder. You can expect more damage from cases/bullets with more powder and mass.

http://preview.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/gun-cartridge-fuse-minimyth/
 
Back in the bad ole days of shag carpet-
I vacuumed up a .22 long rifle round.
It went off - yikes!
In the roller brush area of the vacuum.
Did no damage to anything.
 
I can personally attest to the fact that a magnum rifle primer when set off in a case with no primer and bullet will penetrate about 5 inches and lodge just under the skin on the other side of the of a man's calf. And it doesn't hurt until much later.
 
If your house is on fire, the ammo might be the least of your worries, yes.

But if a guy is storing hundreds or thousands of rounds of large rifle rounds and some 50 cal, then the neighbors might have to worry.
 
Interesting. Both the case and bullet penetrated a bit farther than I really expected, I wouldn't expect either to be deadly unless the person hit were very unlucky. I've read of lots of rimfires discharging when dropped or struck some way.
 
Two years ago a house a few doors down the street caught fire; the owner was a hunter and had a number or rounds in his garage. When they started popping off, the firemen backed off and let the house burn.
 
^^^ good video.

They couldn't even get the projectiles to penetrate sheetrock. That's pretty good evidence right there. A firefighter in full uniform has a lot more to worry about than cartridges going off, unless they're loaded in a firearm.
 
This makes one think of building a small safe of sheetrock or other fire retardant materials just for ammo. Just because the SAMMI website says firemen are not at risk from sporting ammo in a fire doesn't mean firemen wouln't back off if they hear "popping".

A simple padlock to keep kids out but otherwise sturdy enough to withstand enough of the fire so that if the rounds start making firecracker sounds to scare firemen, the house is already a total loss.

Since I also have a few propane cylinders for 2 camping lanterns they should also go into a “fire box”
 
longspurr said:
This makes one think of building a small safe of sheetrock or other fire retardant materials just for ammo. Just because the SAMMI website says firemen are not at risk from sporting ammo in a fire doesn't mean firemen wouln't back off if they hear "popping".
Click to expand...
I like this idea. Maybe 3 or 4 layers of drywall, some steel studs, etc. I want the firefighters to put out my house fire.
 
Torch

One day, while reloading and pulling some bullets from some .357s with an inertia puller, I noticed the familiar odor of spent powder. Apparently, the powder, or some of it, in the puller chamber ignited. I neither heard a "bang" nor saw smoke or flash. I can't explain this.
 
Well, that video was a bit of a mythbuster. I too did not expect such an energetic reaction with as much penetration of both the bullet and case!:eek:
 
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